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We are back to the pre world war two mental state. Due to climate pressure, automation, fossil fuel scaricty some are once again talking about how people can remain usefull, and even openly if we should have as much people as we have right now. Yuval Noah Harari, who talks about human cooperation as the cause of its rise from the animal kingdom (a weak talk with several flaws), asks the question in his book “What do we need humans for, or what do we need so many humans for”. In his case the premise of his talk is to justify religion and apparently lead to regurgitation of the century old thoughts that inspired fascism.

There is a good reason to think of usefullness in humans. We come from long lines of farmers, hunters and traders, and not doing anything has always meant a quick exit from the population. Usefullness however can be defined in several ways, one can be usefull to ones self, to others, by keeping them healthy and fit, by providing them with what they want (which may be of no importance to their survival at all).

Making money is not necessarily usefull, but economic thought almost defines it as such

Today usefullness is almost exclusively defined by economic factors. This means that if you can make money doing something it becomes usefull. Our lives are organized in such a way that we can not easily produce our own food, we can not provide ourselves with shelter (land prices are adopted to involving builders to build a normal house). The flipside of this lack of freedom is that the government (which usually contains some socialist members) tries to control the economy so it offers opportunities to all. It doesn’t because it tends to offer opportunities to those that are easy to control, those that promote it’s ideal of consumption. Not everyone is born to be vrivolous enough to go for the full economic ideology.

Economics takes morality and puts trade in its place. It doesn’t want you to be attached to anything of potential value to someone else.

A well functioning economy will always repair flaws in its own system and continuously does. Economists constantly debate to find how out how to present the core principles so that people will cooperate with it. In some countries like the US this has resulted in even the election cycle being economically driven (a total and complete success). Companies pay for propaganda that makes people support their chosen candidate. There are left oriented socialist companies that will support the left wing candidates, and right wing fossil fuel serving companies that will support the right wing candidates. Obviously the usefullness meme comes from the right, and there is a good reason.

On the left side we find people that try to reason with reality. They try to see what is there and wonder how it can help us survive and thrive. If there is solar energy the left is all for using it. If there are people in need the left will recognize there are ample resources to feed them and try to do so. The left does go wrong when it thinks that we can have universal basic income without riding ourselves of having to deal with the fossil fuel sector. A basic income implies that you take fossil fuels from people who work very hard to get it and have almost everyone to sell it to.

On the right we find people that reason with their ambitions. What they want is most important. They want above all to be strong and clean, not dragged down by trash and filth (easily disgusted people tend strongly to be on the right side of the political spectrum). To the people on the right reality is of no importance, what is important is that they get what they want. They usually exclude filth and poverty from their vision of the world so in extrema they don’t want poor or filthy people to exist. A slight variation of not wanting people to exist is to want them to be usefull. This is the minimal requirement for the right because if you are not usefull you don’t contribute to what anyone wants, and the people on the right don’t bother with people that don’t play a role in what they want.

Marylin Monroe plugging Shell (1:35) in Some like it Hot

The right side of politics may once have been predicated on a superior sense of neatness or ability and desire to achieve. Today it is predicated on protecting the fossil fuel industry and the banking system which is a derivative of it. Without fossil fuels there would be no banking system as we know it today. Credit would not be that easily generated. Since Nixon money is fossil fuel credit and this system only works if there is enough fossil fuel to go around. US superiority has come mostly from it’s control over fossil fuels through their dollar printing press and Wallstreet banks. The fossil fuel sector had the biggest cookie to lure the right in and make them be their posterchildren. Neat, clean fossil fuels in neat clean cars in neat clean houses using neat clean plastic etc. etc.

A fossil fuel driven society is a zero sum game

The most important aspect of modern right wing’s subservience to fossil fuel interest is that to them running a society has to be a zero sum game. There is one common resource : fossil fuels, and its supply is limted, so through the management of credit you can manage where it goes. If someone gets it another person will not. The challenge is how to distribute fossil fuels so that most of the right wing servants will keep helping the fossil industry do what it does while still realizing their personal ambitions. It is a challenge to manage the mutual dependence between banks, neat people and oil with a crumbling ecosystem and climate in the background.

In order to manage that dependency the neat people need effective tools to deal with demand for oil rising beyond the ability to supply it. That would definitely lead people to go for renewables and undermine the political power of the right as well as the fossil fuel sector. So in order to reduce demand an ideology has to be created that justifies rejecting people (and sending them to an early grave through deprivation), which has been happening by undermining education, by cutting social services and by allowing automation (although this is a whole other related topic). Now we are reaquainted with the property ‘usefullness’ of a person.

If a person can not find a job he is not usefull?

The first mistake most people will make is to start arguing why people are usefull or not, or how they can be usefull. The first thing to say is that this “how usefull are you?” is an invalid question. Usefull to whom? The answer is usually that a ‘useless person’ takes from the collective, he/she is a parasite. What that implies is that others that are working do not take from that same collective. That people that work are somehow a benefit to us. Most of the times they are not. A divorce lawyers’s work is no use to me, a bakers work in another country is no use to me. In fact, most other jobs are depleting resources that I could have enjoyed more easily if those jobs didn’t exist. This is the whole ‘competitive free market economy’, the reason why we work so hard. ‘Useless people’ that just eat and drink and hang out are exactly what we want!

How usefull is a shoe salesman in Karachi to you? But he has a job!!

If a job today is only viable if there is enough fossil fuel to do all kinds of things to make the job possible, than such a job is a cost of resources, and in 99% of cases people in other jobs do not have any benefit from it. Who does have benefit is the seller of the fossil fuels, who likes to enjoy the revenue in return to giving people lives they like, with some work during the day and relative luxury in their spare time. They would have that if they worked the land and owned their own home, but the fossil fuel economy inserted itself in every activity and brought it under control of the fossil fuel/banking system.

You are not usefull if you don’t create more resources than you consume

As a result most jobs are a burden on resources, and most working people are useless. Picking on the non working is just the most efficient thing to do because it 1. doesn’t affect cashflows 2. It reinforces the notion work is valuable 3. It scares people into their useless jobs. 4. It fits the rights preconception that poor people are filthy (especially when the right ‘useless’ people are shown, the ones with dirty dreadlocks and shabby clothes).

Usefullness can be a local social quality, not a general economic one

Renewables totally change the above dynamic. The first reason why is that solar panels/collectors and wind turbines generate resources, electricity or heat (or cooling) that can be used in many ways to support human lives. The group of people to represent local renewables can not be gathered from the elite of all neat people, because a local wind turbine or solar power plant doesn’t serve people on the other side of the country (even if the fossil fuel economy tries to make this the case). There is no problem with useless people if they are kept alive by systems that have no first owner or require hard work to make available. Renewables break the same sum game. They create a game in which the amount of people our planet can sustain increases by a factor of more than a thousand.

When the productivity or a region no longer depends on whether it is integrated with the fossil fuel distribution system the role of the people in it changes from being either a ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ fossil fuel consumers. Everyone can have a role. The smartest people can still be doctors and the hand ones can maintain the energy infrastructure, but the less intelligent or agressive can simply be and exist off of mostly mechanized food production. Jobs like that of a farmer don’t have to be squeezed to death for the benefit of traders or intermediates, because there is no fossil fuel based economy on top that has many lazy neat people. Instead farmers hold the cards themselves as they are autonomous. This either leads to more people farming or to some kind of communal cooperation when in comes to food production.

Clearly the use of a human is up to him or herself. We are entering an era in which supporting large numbers of ‘useless’ people will become easier, but also in which giving people something to do to ‘justify their existence’ becomes easier. Now it is almost baked into the cake that for those outside or unwanted by the carbon-economic system there is no job that can redeem them (except escape and fight it). Anyone supporting both economics as usual and this notion of usefullness is thus building towards world war II style genocide.

Computers are a problem to the writer of this. They emit something that causes head aches, red eyes, stuck nose, pain in the throat and lungs. Most people in workplaces think it is notthing serious, but it is if you want to work and you feel you are breathing plastic smoke all day.

Now there are some scientific data points on this problem, flame retardants, which some of us can break down easy, others not so easy, which causes some to be very sensitive and others to notice almost nothing.

“We have focused our interest on this compound since it has been proven to be a contact allergen to man and due to the fact that a number of workers in Sweden have acquired health problems related to computer work,” Ostman said.

Not only monitors but laptops and computers have for the last 4 years been a real problem for me. Ostman agrees.

“Computers are a significant source of allergenic emissions in small indoor environments like offices”

“In our analyses of these “wipe samples” from computers, toxic PBDE residues were found in every sample (see Table 1). The highest levels found were deca-BDE. Other brominated flame retardants identified in the analyses were octa- and nona-BDE as well as tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA).”

It seems that if there are reports with names as “Bromide Flame Retardants, Rising Levels of Concern” (written by a n Occupational and Environmental Medicine Fellow of the UCSF), there is reason to pay more attention. Cancer, liver damage and neurodevelopmental problems are the most frequent consequences of significant exposure to the different types of BFRs. Considering these chemicals are found almost in every product and environment its quite a serious thing.

Pope Francis has seen the light. He is in many respects an impressive Pope, because his moral positions overlap with that of many atheists, meaning, it is based on experience and observation. Human suffering is to be avoided, humans in dire straits will commit crimes, degrade themselves, and this is not good for the coherence of society.

In his recent encyclical, which is a letter to whomever wants to read it, he explains that be believes the Roman Catholic church has an obligation to protect ‘creation’. This is quite a perfect stance from our point of view, because even though creationism is an incorrect belief, the idea we need to protect life as it presented itself in the last 2000 years is actually what most climate activist and scientist mean when they warn of risks and changes. Life will go on even if the planet warms 12 degrees, but it won’t be us or the animals and plants we know. The Pope has the right focus.

Now all around the world people ‘of faith’ will start to think about ways to protect ‘creation’. The reason they follow this Pope’s advise is because his suggestion is good. It has no drawbacks for normal people. We do what we feel has the least negative consequences, that is how humans operate. Republicans in the US already shown they are a bunch of flaming hypocrites, Jeb Bush saying he doesn’t take econoic advise form the Pope, but that is because wealth is what they care about, and their wealth is born out of fossil fuel economics.

We see a resurgence of ideology over economics. Elon Musk, the Party for the Animals in Holland, the Pope all three are driven by non-economic motives that are none the less valid and good. And in all three cases the ideas and actions find widespread resonance. It is simple : Only caring about maximizing fossil fuel cashflow is not the way most people want to spend their time on Earth.

Renewables mean many parts of Earth become viable to sustain life, because solar electricity can generate water, make fertilizer, drive planting etc. without costing anyone anything

But there is more the Pope could do. In fact he could do something nobody else could or would be motivated to do. He wants to mobilize people to protect creation, he does that by writing, talking and tweeting about it. But he is also the ruler of a small nation, the Vatican. It has a bank, the Vatican bank. This is a unique situation to be in if we think about Extraeconomics.

Extraeconomic rules :

Start by spending savings, not by going into debt

Use only renewable energy

Don’t transact with the world economy

Sustains its own population

Create/maintain a significant surplus in resources

May transact with other extraeconomic zones

Extraeconomics is a new kind of thinking, not in terms of creating enterprises as part of the world economy, but instead creating them as 100% self sufficient operations, which get started by taking from the world economy, but which then stop interacting with it and which create large resouce surplusses (wood, fish, plastic, whatever) and only sustain the people involved in them. They are like martian colonies on Earth, with a mission to replenish resouces, mainly focussing on those that help us keep ‘creation’ alive and well, so carbon sequestering, biodiversity enhancing, carbon capturing activities.

Extraeconomics is not about isolation from the rest of the world, but only about disarming the economic forces that now drive us to exploit,destroy and consume so much more than we would without this misguided economic philosophy. The market is not king, and resources are not limitless. To sustain ourselves over millions of years to come, we need to work within our planetary limits, not follow the demands of fossil fuel producers and use as much of it as fast as possible to make them rich. Because that is what makes our economy so destructive, the drive to sell fossil fuels.

The vatican has build its wealth on banking, it was practically the first bank to print money, and it started doing that right after the printing press was invented. It’s booming sale of indulgences allowed it to thrive and build its grand cathedrals, until people got fed up with paying for redemption and created the protestant and other spin-offs. Now the Vatican could do this once more, by creating a currency for Extraeconomic operations, because internally such operations have to be run like companies, with a big difference, namely without fossil fuel cost. An extraeconomic operation or enterprise has to be 100% renewable energy powered. That said they might be of such a size and complexity that they need a currency, one that does not invite interaction with the wider economy.

The church has always had monestaries, that where usually self sufficient, so in the religious realm extraeconomic systems are nothing new. What is new is that those systems can be set up to protect creation, that we have a Pope that has the motivation to do so, and that it even has all the economic autonomy needed to do it right. It has people motivated to put in the effort, people willing to cooperate, land around the globe, money to take the first resources and a philosophy that will always put life first.

Basically every non-economic ideology could bind people enough to allow them to set up and run an extraeconomic zone/system/enterprise. It is about the focus on preserving ‘creation’ and seeing beyond the limits of fossil fuel economics. Our planet has enormous potential if we use locally available resources, even in the deepest deserts and the middle of the atlantic ocean.

It is interesting to look at motivation for the sustainable and renewable revolutions that are now gathering speed. For many people captured in a tight economic matrix buying solar panels has to be explained as a cost saving choice with an acceptable ROI. But many people, expecially in the early days of solar technology, where motivated by either purist or idealist motivation. Purists where found in the scientific community, they where the rational logical thinkers, who would try to see the world as it is, and where looking to solve problems (for instance energy supply in space for the Appollo missions).

The people that designed the ambition to go to the moon where also driven by reason. They could empirically show that an ambitions goal can have an enormously positive effect on developemnt of all kinds of technology, the dreams of children and thus the transferral of (at that time) fossil energy into wealth. They did not hesitate to push this rational insight into policy, because it satisfied their drive for sound action and increased wealth. These where no-nonsense engineers and economists.

Today we have reached the moon, and due largely to the work of Elon Musk a new goal has been presented : Going to Mars. It is not only a cathalyst for creation of new technology. In a way it is also a distraction from what is happening to our planet. Economically speaking you have two choices : 1. Work in the economy 2. Think about space.

That star..

Thinking about space is something rather contemplative, which is no surprise because most of our evolution we spend evenings in the dark with nothing more to stare at than the stars. For most of our evolution we attributed events to gods who would fly around up there, move the sun through the sky and do all kinds of other things. The kingdom of the christian god is in ‘heaven’. Part of the psychology of heaven as a good place is probably our confusion of the upward gaze with that of looking at our parents as infant. This has been cleverly used by strangers ‘church fathers’ for centuries to turn us into children “of god in heaven”. Of course the childisch mentality has economic advantages.

But today, as we are trying to think straight in our economic matrix we can once again choose a goal, one rather similar in holistic terms to a journey to Mars. We can work to reach “Heaven” here on Earth. After a century of playing god the time has come to complete the act so to say.

This may seem a rediculous idea, but think about it. What would be required to create heaven like circumstances on Earth? Maybe the “eternal life” part of heavenly existence will have to wait, but the environmental circumstances of heaven are now within reach.

We can make a world that grows, is lush and green, while we ourselves only have to enjoy it. We can make one in which we don’t need to sweat and toil to stay alive, in which most diseases can be cured..

Practically this translates into a world where energy production does not burden what lives in any way, in which automated systems maintain and expand the regions that are suitable for life, which includes deserts and oceans, in which people may work but in which pefroming heavy labour is a choice, not something one gets forced into by a harsh society.

The goal to create ‘Heaven on earth’ is not rediculous now, and the key aspect that will make it happen is that it is congruent with the way the makers and doers of our world set their goals. It is a rational conclusion that compared to todays world we can create one that is infinitely more pleasant. One in which we don’t have to ignore slavery or remote wars, because they won’t exist. One in which we don’t have to dread the death of oceans or the extinction of most life. One in which we can predict how our children will fare because they don’t have to fight over fossil fuel rations. The last generations opened the gates of hell, the following generations will ascend the stairway to heaven (ok, sorry, that’s corny)..

Are you into sustainable agriculture, you bring a piece of this future world about, if you install build wind parks you do the same. If you educated kids so they care more about what keeps them alive, you are part of the ‘movement’. If you insist on selling fossil fuels, if you want to exploit natural resources and not care about what you leave behind, you are someone that brings about hell on Earth.

This is no religious thing, religion is only responsible for teaching us to group things we dread under the name Hell, and things we enjoy under the name Heaven. Hell was always buring underground, a bit like coal seam gassification. Evil is darkness. Oily darkness? The devil’s sulfurous stench.. These attributes probably came from open coal seam fires and the observation of lava, but the translation to products of the fossil industry is an easy step. Heaven? The Sun up there, it brings life. It causes the release of Oxytocin when it warms our skin, associated with the feeling of being loved. Religion just borrowed that effect to attribute it to god.

Right now we can make empirical lists of the outcome from the actions of one kind of person : accelerated climate destruction, increased suffering and extinction of mankind and of another kind : climate conservation, reduced suffering and a better chance for mankind.

Perhaps those that want to fight climate change and return our world to a better state can all be considered servants of a new faith, one that is surprisingly rational and has a simple goal : Creation of heaven on Earth. Think it over, it is a goal well worth your effort. Accept it and you may become a knight of heaven

Some pictures of a straw bale appartment complex in Nijmegen (map link) build by a collective of its inhabitants. It has just been finished a couple of months ago, so we’ll have to return for pictures when it is in its final state. The appartment complex has different sizes of appartments, some are in the social housing price range, eligible for rent subsidies. More info to follow.

The internal walls are covered with adobe, directly onto the straw. This can be retouched with a wet sponge later. It creates a breathing wall that in some cases even helps purify the air.

The walls of the complex are thick. Strawbales are about 50 cm wide. This also helps sound proofing and cooling in summer.

The design of the complex uses a lot of wood. The internal frame is wood, wich gives it a relaxing atmosphere.

The complex includes a community center with a green roof.

On its roofs a large solar power plant supplies electricity. The energy requirments will be low because of the high insulation factor of straw bales.

Close by a multi generational housing project appears to be half way, more to follow about that.

Europe is struggling with africans being shipped by human trafficers across the Mediterranean sea. Many lose their lives in rickety boats, and once in Europe they have to make money to repay the people that smuggled them here, or harm will come to their relatives at home.

Whether these people come here to find fortune or be free of war or prosecution, the response right now is not adequate. If they land in Italy they are now practically quarantined there, shipped back from France and Switzerland. Their ability to cross the channel to the UK is also being stemmed, also because they damage cargo passing through the channel tunnel.

The people themselves can be illiterate or engineers, usually this is not found out by anyone because most of them are not allowed to work in Europe. The potential for wealth wasted this way is obvious. In a society where so many jobs are lost because of automation (and more will follow), it makes no sense to claim that a few able africans cause to much hardship for Europeans. After all, if they work they create wealth, which benefits all.

In a ideal world one could dispatch some special forces to deal with the traffickers themselves, but the complexity of the network of criminals and corrupt officials that allow the human trade to go on may be underestimated. Too many people involved, too many eager to get involved, not enough governmental care, maybe even officials that see the trade as a nice source of additional income? Who knows. Even in the US the law enforcement system can be semi criminal (for example the ability of cops to take any cash you may have on your person without reason if they stop your car, a practice that is now being abolished).

Some politicians have stepped over the (send back/let enter) false choice by suggesting the refugees are send back with some assistance. This seems a great solution, because in a way it deals with the economic motive of many to flee. However such a plan would be sensitive to the same problems as every 3rd world aid program, and many of them have been unsuccesfull (except the ones that where covert subsidies to European companies).

But there is another crisis brewing in Africa, the climate crisis. Rainfall will drop 50% by 2020 in most of Africa, meaning widespread drought, problems for farmers, famine etc. The epically autistic Robert Zoellick, former World Bank CEO suggested africans stuck without irrigation would have to buy ‘rain index futures’, insurance against drought. First : Which poor farmer gets the idea to go insure his harvest this way? Second : Which insurere is stupid enough to insure for drought if the trend is predicted and shown to occur? Third : How do you feed half a continent suffering from drought even if you have your money (food prices would go through the roof) ? Supid, insane, irresponsible World Bank advice.

The african climate crisis will produce many more refugees than are already coming here, some of which are exactly that. Fleeing climate change however is a losing strategy. If arable land is destroyed and lost to the desert it has to be reclaimed, because it isn’t getting better, it is only getting worse. This is something Europe can assist in, and perhaps in doing so it can employ africans that where looking for a better existence in Europe. A project of climate resilient carbon sequestring development may even produce so much wealth that it can sustain itself without outside financial support.

It is naive to think one can simply start some kind of program in Africa, in any of its countries. It is also naive to think that one can simply recruit refugees to start a project. Short term there is a lot to do even in Europe for people that want to work. There’s endless farmland that lies fallow, recieving annual money to be plowed but not used. The plowing money goes directly into the pockets of the fossil fuel suppliers, and the land loses carbon from being exposed. Why not plant carbon sequestring biomass, trees on that land. Trees bring rain, so dry regions will see more rain and biomass in general. Silvopastural woods (ones meant for wildlife) can increase biodiversity and create a pool of CO2 neutral biomass (although this should not be the goal). The more we grow where we don’t have to grow food, the more perpared we are for climate change.

In Africa one could go down the routes travelled by refugees and look for places they might want to stay on their route. Of course one would have to deal with the traffickers as well. Countries like Niger should be assisted in creating centers of eco restoration, desert farming, even if it is a super dry desert. With solar energy this doesn’t have to be a pipe dream at all.

Renewables create new economic opportunities, ones we like to call Extraeconomic or Roboeconomic, because economics is about the “Maximization of utilization fo fossil fuels”. Extraeconomics is about creating a renewable based autonomous system including peope, food production and some kind of climate related service (carbon capture, biodiversity protection) without interacting with the world economy. These systems can exist in regions with economic activity, but they can also be set up soley based on the renewable energy resources.

Instead of viewing Africa as a lost continent and waiting for the millios of people to find their way to places that will remain relatively fertile (Europe will fare well initially) on can assist them in protecting them against climate change, while at the same time learning about extraeconomic systems and protecting the planet as a whole. There are even interesting export opportunites for Europes innovative horticulture industry. The driver can be renewables and the goal can be to create places where refugees can find opportunity without having to risk their lives..

In discussions with people that are working hard to green our economy it is often hard to convey an insight that is fundamental to solving our current climate predicament. We’re on a dangerous course and it seems like we’re on some kind of supertanker, while we’re not. To see that it is necessary to understand how fundamentally pro-fossil fuels our economic system is. It is the supertanker we are stuck on.

So we present a challenge, it is a challenge to explain how to do things in two situations. One in which there is 100% fossil fuel energy, the other in which there is 100% renewable energy.

The challenge is simple :

A group of people wants to build a swimming pool for kids. A bank (that is kept around for this special purpose) creates 2 million Euro in credit to start the build. What happens next?

To be sure, the world in which this happens runs on renewables, only on wind, solar and storage, and these resources are utilized to their full capacity.

With two million in your hands, what would you do? What would happen? Can you describe this in one page and send it to this website so we can share it here? Our email adress is info@greencheck.nl.

We call it the Roboeconomic challenge because understanding the difference between our economy and the future economy (which we call the roboeconomy) is stark. It requires a new way of thinking that has nothing to do with our current economic framework. Roboeconomics hints at the bigger role of robotics, the ecological nature of our way of life and the fact that there will still be an economic system when we are running on 100% renewables, but a different one. Solving the challenge above is part of learning about this roboeconomy..

Joseph Simcox is a one in a 8 billion kind of guy, who has been fanatical about plants from a very early age. He hold incredible knowledge about what kind of edible plants exist and is not shy in sharing it.

He shows we don’t need a Monsanto to make desert hardened plant varieties, the deserts are full of plants that do well. The small group of plants we know could be expanded if we grow more of them locally, and if we didn’t have big agriculture having such financial and legal advantages.

He shows that high tech horticulture can partner in making seedlings available of region specific plants for export around the world, something Holland is good at. Of course then we have to push out companies that patent and steal varieties and make them unavailable for breeding such as Monsanto.